Government's lying statistics

AROUND THE world, demonstrators in over 50 countries took to the streets on 8 December in protests coinciding with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bali.

Few protesters had illusions that this convention had any answers to these climate problems. A recent Mori poll suggests that two-thirds of people in Britain do not trust world leaders to solve climate change.

A new report about the British government's record on carbon output explains the scepticism. Under the Kyoto agreement, Britain is supposed to reduce its greenhouse gas output to 12.5% below 1990 levels by 2012. Official figures claim that emissions went down 15% between 1990 and now.

But the new report says that if you add in pollution from aviation, shipping, overseas trade and tourism, not counted in the official figures, Britain's carbon output has actually risen by 19% over that period.

Capitalist production, geared to making the quickest and biggest profit, is unable to solve these problems.

Far from it. So-called 'green' oil giant BP is investing £1.5 billion in extracting oil from the Canadian wilderness using methods which environmentalists call the "biggest global warming crime" in history.

Roger Shrives